Oct 22 (Reuters) - Social media platform Reddit ( RDDT ) sued

artificial intelligence startup Perplexity in New York federal

court on Wednesday, accusing it and three other companies of

unlawfully scraping its data to train Perplexity's AI-based

search engine.

Reddit ( RDDT ) said in the complaint that Perplexity circumvented

its data-protection measures in order to steal the data that it

"desperately needs" to power its "answer engine" system.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington)